I’ve touched on superstition in poker before and perhaps have intimated my disaffection for it, though I’ll admit to dabbling in superstitious behaviour in the past. For instance, I used to wear a hand-carved crucifix from Haiti around my neck that I would rub before I looked at my cards. You’ve seen the guy in the poker tournaments with the flashing toy shark, what’s his name – Humberto Brenes. He’s so grandiose a personality, and the shark is a perfect prop for him, and he uses it successfully to frustrate and ridicule his opponents, but make no mistake: he likely believes in the toy shark’s talismanic properties – just as I believed that by rubbing my cross I could induce Fortune to come and dance sweet with me. After a month-long run of bad cards the wooden crucifix started splintering from excessive manipulation, and I suspected that its magic was gone, so I discarded it unceremoniously in a concrete bin in front of the Fallsview Casino, with the spray of Niagara Falls lightly acidifying the air in a way I find not unpleasant.

Well, the subject of superstition in poker came up the other day when I accompanied my friend Bryan K, a semi-professional player like myself, on a shopping trip to a sundry goods store. Bryan and I have ground out thousands of hours at the Fallsview and Casino Niagara poker tables. Indeed, he’s become my nemesis, often crushing my premium hands with the rinky-dinky bullshit cards that he loves to play so much. Hitting a little straight or hooking a stinky two-pair is just his cup of tea. He derives great pleasure from taking down the elephants with pea shooters, from slaying the Goliaths with his slingshot. Somewhere in all of this, or despite it, I consider him a friend.

As it stands, Bryan is as superstitious as they come. He always comes to play in a multicoloured jacket that looks like a harlequin’s hand-me-down, and he loves to wear a blue velvet top hat that would be the envy of the Mad Hatter. Furthermore, he carries around with him a veritable warehouse of paraphernalia and thingamajigs and doodads that limitations of space forbid me from enumerating. Let’s just say he makes Humberto Bernes, with his lonely shark, look like a light traveller. Bryan’s pockets rattle like a castanet quintet from all the junk he carts around. When asked about this personality quirk he gets defensive. “Look,” he has said on more than one occasion. “I am what I am. I can’t play well unless I’m in my comfort zone. And in order to be in that zone I have to have all my charms with me, all my tchotchke, all my trinkets and key fobs, all of it.”

Now, as we go down the aisles of the sundry goods store Bryan continues predicating about superstitions as he gathers up some items that seem somewhat unusual and disparate but for all that unexceptional. He purchases a few sticks, some hemp cord, bits of fabric, Spanish moss, tacky glue, needles and thread, and other suchlike things. When I ask him what he plans to do with these things he tells me he will show me back at his flat.

Back at his flat he takes out all the stuff and starts to tie two sticks together with the hemp cord, forming a cross. Then he wraps the Spanish moss around the sticks, beginning at the middle for reinforcement, and going up around the head, down to one arm, back across to the other arm, back to the middle, and down to the bottom in one continuous motion. Now he wraps the fabric strips around the moss, making sure to leave some of the moss showing. He then secures it all with tacky glue.

The disparate materials suddenly start looking like a doll. Bryan continues working diligently. “You’re quite the artist,” I say. “I think I’ve misunderstood you up till now.” He smiles and continues with his task. He’s working needle and thread now, stitching up loose seams and what have you. Then he uses the tacky glue to affix two black-eyed peas to the lump that will become the head, which quickly look like eyes. Then he stitches some beads under the eyes and a small smiling mouth forms. “That’s fantastic,” I say. “It’s really starting to look like something.” He continues working and slowly a rather handsome doll starts to take shape. He dresses it in a small pair of denim trousers and a little brown sweater. “That’s funny,” I say, pointing to my sweater. “It’s just like this one. “ Bryan nods and grins toothily. “Yeah,” he says, “and you’re wearing jeans.” We both laugh it up.

Then Bryan does something odd. He reaches over to me and with a quick sweep of his hand, touches my brow. I feel only a light brushing, but as he pulls away his hand I see he has a lock of my hair in it. I want to protest but his smile disarms me. Then he uses the tacky glue to fix the hair into place and sure enough a masculine figure emerges. It’s a pretty cool looking doll, I must admit. “That’s very impressive,” I say. He nods. “Anyway,” he says, “we were talking about superstitions and poker.” He looks at me and winks. “Yeah,” I say. “I don’t believe in all that mumbo-jumbo, at least not anymore.” He holds the doll before him with both hands, admiring his own handiwork. I start feeling a little, I don’t know, apprehensive.

Emile Frendo of the Honeymoon City is a semi-professional poker player and winner of the 2006 Pirate Poker Open Championship.